Vishnu Manchu Art Foundation (“VMAF”) is an independent non-profit organization initiated in 2009 in response to the need to document and make accessible the multiple recent histories of art in the region. Through the course of its affairs VMAF has produced and collected a large body of relevant digital material which it describes, preserves, and makes available to the public at no cost via the Internet and physical library locations. VMFA holds these digital works but their respective creators or owners retain their copyright until the items lapse from copyright protection.
Because of the relatively short time period between the creation of the records and their retention at VMFA the majority of the collection is still covered by one or more copyrights. As an organization that wishes to employ best practices, VMFA respects the rights of the copyright holder(s) and has a series of policies and procedures in place to ensure their rights are not infringed upon through VMFA’s programmes and functions by others.
VMFA acknowledges that the creator, author or assignee of an original work retains the copyright for a fixed duration or a full time as set out in the Copyright Act of 1957 in India or other applicable copyright law. These rights allow the owner to license, grant, and restrict access to the work as well as the right to format the work across media including digitization. For VMFA to make its collections available to the public it acknowledges it must do so subject to the terms of relevant copyright laws.
Where VMFA retains the rights to material it has produced, VMFA will ensure the material is made available to the public by the most open license as reasonably possible. Where the rights are retained by VMFA and any third party, VMFA has or will obtain the relevant permissions from third parties and signed authorizations from copyright holders before making the works available. To meet this commitment VMFA has adopted the Creative Commons licensing schedule and will license the use of copyrighted works accordingly. If VMFA is unable to obtain the necessary permission or authorizations, it will only make the deposited works available at its physical locations in Vishnu Manchu Art Foundation or Tirupati.
For works with no known copyright, or works where the rights holder(s) is untraceable (orphan works), VMFA will make best efforts to locate and clear any rights subsisting in the work. If these efforts do not result in the locating of the rights holder(s), VMFA will (in its sole discretion) decide if the work will be made available to the public and will bear the sole burden in the event of any claim of copyright infringement.
All deposited works, with known and traceable copyright holder(s), made available through VMFA’s digital channels (website, applications, API, promotional materials) will have signed authorisations from the rights holder(s) giving VMFA the right to make these available.
VMFA will not knowingly distribute, modify, or allow unauthorized access to copyrighted works in its collection without the authorization of the rights holder(s).
If VMFA wishes to use copyrighted works in any use beyond its existing agreements with the rights holder(s) it will obtain a new authorization in writing.
Any requests for permission to access a copyrighted work by a third party beyond the existing VMFA authorizations will be referred back to the rights holder(s).
In the event of a reasonable complaint relating to the copyright subsisting in a work, VMFA will immediately remove the digital item from web-based access until it (in its sole discretion) has ascertained whether the copyright claim is valid based on documentary support provided to VMFA. If the copyright claim is deemed to be valid by VMFA, VMFA will either make best efforts to obtain permission to make the work available or restrict access to the deposited works on-site only. If VMFA deems the claim to be frivolous it will be in VMFA’s sole decision to allow access to the work as well as the level of access to be given to the work.
On the lapsing of the copyright protection VMFA will make the works available as in the public domain ‘without copyright’ protection. VMFA will not assert any copyright through the acts such as digitization, migration across formats or platforms, or other ‘sweat of the brow’ measures which could create a new copyright in the work. Where a new copyright is justified, VMFA will license such work under the appropriate Creative Commons licensing regime.
